53 pages • 1 hour read
Jules VerneAround the World in Eighty Days
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1872A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “In Which Phileas Fogg and Passepartout Accept Each Other, the One as Master, the Other as Man”
Content Warning: This section discusses depictions of colonialism and dated cultural perspectives, as well as racial and national stereotypes reflective of the book’s time of writing.
The reader is introduced to Phileas Fogg, a single man who lives in England in 1872. He is extraordinary for maintaining a single membership to the Reform Club and no other society. He gained membership to the club through a recommendation by the Barings for his great wealth.
Phileas is a quiet and generous man of habit with a mysterious knowledge of the world despite the regularity of his domestic routine. He is waiting to meet his new domestic servant, having let his previous valet go for bringing him shaving water that was two degrees below his usual demands.
Phileas hires the Frenchman Jean Passepartout.
Chapter 2 Summary: “In Which Passepartout Is Convinced That He Has at Last Found His Ideal”
Passepartout describes Phileas.
Passepartout describes himself as well. He is a man whose name describes his tendency to transition from one position and place to the next. He is looking to settle down into a position for a respectable British gentleman in a nice, relaxing home. Phileas seems ideal to the valet.
Phileas leaves immediately for the Reform Club, where he typically spends most of his day.
Chapter 3 Summary: “In Which a Conversation Takes Place Which Seems Likely to Cost Phileas Fogg Dear”
At the Reform Club, Phileas reads his paper and listens to the conversation of his peers: Andrew Stuart, an engineer; John Sullivan and Samuel Fallentin, both bankers; Thomas Flanagan, a brewer; and Gauthier Ralph, a director at the Bank of England. They discuss a robbery of £55,000 that was reported only after the clerk noticed that a collection of new banknotes was missing from his counter.
As they discuss the likelihood of catching the thief, Phileas remarks that the world has become smaller, increasing the odds of success.
The men discuss the modern concept of travel. Phileas reports the ability to travel around the world in 80 days. The men argue against this possibility. Phileas wagers £20,000 that he can indeed make the journey in 80 days. The men accept the wager, and Phileas announces that he will leave the next day and arrive back at the Reform Club on December 21st.
Chapter 4 Summary: “In Which Phileas Fogg Astounds Passepartout, His Servant”
Phileas arrives home early and astounds Passepartout by announcing that, in 20 minutes, they will be leaving to travel around the world. They will carry only basic necessities and a change of clothes for three days, purchasing any other necessities as they travel. He instructs his valet to pack immediately.
After his frenzied packing, Passepartout meets Phileas downstairs two minutes late. When Phileas notes the delay, he highlights the strangeness of the situation, and Phileas relents—this event was not in the schedule Passepartout originally received. Passepartout then accepts a carpet bag containing £20,000, the remainder of Phileas’s fortune, as they leave.
The pair arrive at the train station. Phileas gives his winnings from his day at the Reform Club to a beggar woman, speaking kindly to her. He bids farewell to the gentlemen from the Reform Club who have come to see him off. Then, he and Passepartout board the train to Dover and Calais in France.
Phileas coolly explains that Passepartout will cover the expense of having left his gas burner on in his haste to leave.
Chapter 5 Summary: “In Which a New Species of Funds, Unknown to the Moneyed Men, Appears on ‘Change’”
News of the wager spreads quickly in London, and people begin to bet on the possibility of Phileas’s success or failure. The newspapers cover all aspects of the story. Almost everyone believes he will fail.
Meanwhile, the police commissioner receives a telegraph from a Detective Fix. Based on a somewhat vague description received from the bank teller, not to mention the subject’s odd behavior, Fix believes that he has found their bank robber. It is Phileas.
Chapter 6 Summary: “In Which Fix, the Detective, Betrays a Very Natural Impatience”
Detective Fix waits for the arrival of the Mongolia, the steamer that Phileas and Passepartout have taken. Fix hopes to earn the reward for the arrest of the robber. On examining the route Phileas must take, he feels confident that he will catch the criminal.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Which Once More Demonstrates the Uselessness of Passports as Aids to Detectives”
Fix visits the consulate that checks visas and attempts to persuade the consul to hold Phileas’s visa until he can get a warrant for the man’s arrest. The consul cannot legally do so.
When Phileas arrives at the consulate, the consul marks his visa. Phileas then waits for the next leg of the journey to begin while meticulously marking his itinerary.
Meanwhile, Fix meets Passepartout and learns more about Phileas while the valet amiably chats.
Chapter 8 Summary: “In Which Passepartout Talks Rather More, Perhaps, Than Is Prudent”
Passepartout laments how little he has seen of the places they’ve visited while speaking with Fix.
Fix notices that Passepartout’s watch is incorrect and mentions the time change due to traveling across time zones. Passepartout refuses to adjust his watch, an heirloom from his great grandfather.
Passepartout then explains the wager to the detective. Fix asks how long he has known his master and if the man is wealthy. The valet explains the carpetbag full of 20,000 banknotes they are using for expenses. Fix explains his theory. Passepartout tells Fix their next stop is Bombay in India and convinces the detective to wait until they return to London to make the arrest, as he is certain Phileas is innocent.
Chapter 9 Summary: “In Which the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean Prove Propitious to the Designs of Phileas Fogg”
Phileas and Passepartout make good time traversing the Red Sea on a steamer. Passepartout enjoys the voyage while he can, chatting with Fix as they go. They arrive a day early, and Phileas enters this success into the itinerary.
Chapter 10 Summary: “In Which Passepartout Is Only Too Glad to Get off With the Loss of His Shoes”
Chapter 10 begins with a description of India and British rule in India as well as the history of the East India Company. It describes the role of this company within British and Indian relations. The chapter then discusses changes in travel from horses and palanquins to steamboats and the great railway.
Phileas visits the consulate to stamp his visa and eats at a local landlord’s inn while Passepartout has several adventures completing a list of errands. Passepartout is distracted by the sights and sounds.
Fix continues to follow Phileas, who reprimands Passepartout when the valet almost misses the railway to Calcutta.
Chapters 1-10 Analysis
The beginning of the narrative establishes the structural and stylistic elements of the novel. Each chapter title offers a pithy summary of the main action that occurs. This approach to chapter titles aimed to serve readers of the novel as serial fiction a quick and efficient method for reviewing previous chapters and identifying the key information from the present chapters. Chapters 1-3 introduce Phileas Fogg, characterizing the main protagonist as a punctual, pragmatic Englishman with a mysterious past; the chapters demonstrate Phileas’s familiarity with travel, an aspect necessary to facilitate the journey he will take. The early chapters also introduce Passepartout, Phileas’s new valet and character foil. Finally, these chapters introduce the conflict: Phileas’s wager to travel around the world in 80 days. This wager drives the plot, creating openings for Verne’s scientific, descriptive style by emphasizing the role of setting within the narrative; this literary device develops more fully as the journey progresses in Chapters 11-20. This wager simultaneously balances the dense descriptions with tension, providing a straightforward premise with inherent forward momentum.
Phileas’s developing characterization also establishes the theme of Punctuality, Time, and Time Management. Chapter 1 introduces the protagonist’s compulsive fixation on punctuality when he notes that Passepartout’s watch is four minutes slow. Passepartout is perplexed by his new master’s concern but looks forward to benefiting from Phileas’s reputation for regularity. This hope, in turn, foreshadows the character development that Passepartout demonstrates over the course of the journey as he becomes increasingly invested in the success of the wager. The symbol of the watch as a whole during these chapters makes clear that Phileas and Passepartout are foils, the former aligned with order and efficiency and the latter with sentimentality and emotion.
The ways in which the two main characters view punctuality and time management tie into the themes of Victorian Honor, Integrity, and Ideals and The Juxtaposition of Art and Science. In line with their contrasting views of the importance of sticking to a schedule, the two men reflect dueling values of the Victorian era. For example, in Chapter 2, Passepartout reflects explicitly on his new employer’s bizarre, mechanical behavior; this behavior is representative of the Victorian impulse to constrain outward displays of emotion and promote logic and reason in society. It’s an approach very much in line with the Industrial Revolution, which emphasized the power of science and technology. The protagonist’s insistence on stamping his passport at each location to verify the steps of his journey further demonstrates how he expresses honor and integrity, that is, through practicing systematic efficiency. In comparison, in Chapter 8, Passepartout laments how little of their destinations he has seen, a complaint that situates the valet as more of a Romanticist. Romanticism, as a movement, emphasized intense emotion and the aesthetic, authentic experiences that stem from and evoke those emotions. Passepartout, in short, aligns instead with the arts.
Phileas’s exaggerated behavior is set against a backdrop of lengthy geographical and technological descriptions that begin in Chapter 5 and continue throughout the narrative. Passepartout’s whimsical, free-spirited characterization contrasts this symbolism while highlighting more artistic, stylized renderings of the places they briefly visit. His tendency to wander and land in farcical situations contributes to these cultural descriptions in the narrative. This combination further develops the theme of the juxtaposition of art and science.
In Chapter 5, the narrator describes the coverage of Phileas’s wager in the various newspapers, illustrating the significance of newspapers in Victorian culture as well as making an ironic allusion to the serial publication of the story itself. This chapter also introduces Detective Fix, the antagonist of the novel, who immediately begins several attempts to delay the progress of Phileas’s journey. Setting, or time and place, continues to be the most significant aspect of the novel; Verne frames the action with lengthy exposition at the beginning and end of each new leg of the journey and chapter within the novel.
Chapter 10 is the final chapter in this section. It introduces aspects of imperialism and colonization, building the theme of Imperialism, Colonization, and Period-Typical Racism. It begins with a description of India and British Rule in India that pays close attention to the waning influence of the East India Company in the region. The East India Company controlled global trade among Europe, Asia, and the far East, conquering and colonizing much of modern India and Pakistan.
Chapter 10 also develops the artistic aspects of the novel, adding elements of humor to the story as Passepartout blunders into the first of several humorous situations that occur as he completes errands at each stop. These adventures also demonstrate his resourcefulness. In this chapter, he encounters a Brahmin shrine, stumbling through the sacred space and upsetting a religious ceremony. He loses his shoes during this encounter and barely returns in time to board the steamer to the next stop, highlighting the contrast between the valet and the protagonist, who is critical of Passepartout’s undisciplined behavior. This adventure is structurally significant as well since Detective Fix approaches the Brahmin priests to press charges against Passepartout and Phileas to delay the travelers later in the story.
Related Titles
By Jules Verne
